Found some great news on Slashdot. From the New York Times article...
The United States Patent and Trademark Office plans to announce today that it will cooperate with open-source software developers on three initiatives that it says will improve the quality of software patents.
The patent office has come under increasing pressure in recent years from critics who contend that it issues patents without adequate investigation of earlier inventions. As a result, conflicts over published patents have loosed an avalanche of intellectual property litigation.
There are some incredibly ridiculous patents out there, including patents on the double-click and the wheel. Maybe this will be the beginning of the end of this nonsense.
You can read more on the NY Times page